Residents despair as second wind farm is planned | Caroline O'Doherty | Irish Independent | November 18 2020 | www.independent.ie
Shocked residents dealing with a landslide from a wind farm construction site in Donegal were left reeling on the double after getting a letter from the same company telling them of plans to build another wind farm several kilometres away.
The letter was dated last Thursday, the day before the slide at the Meenbog wind farm near Ballybofey started, and it arrived in letterboxes on Tuesday morning.
Local councillor Gary Doherty said people were lost for words. “It’s hard to overstate the hurt and anger this has caused. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
Martin Harley, another councillor, said householders should have been contacted to apologise for what they would find in their post.
“We had hopes for ecotourism projects – walking and fishing – but there’s a lot of damage done now. And if there’s to be another wind farm, that’s very hard for people to take.”
Work at the existing wind farm, which is to supply energy to Amazon data centres, has been suspended.
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peat and forestry slid down the hillside over the last five days, destroying countryside and devastating fish life in the Mournebeg River.
Transport is disrupted, too, as local authorities across the border in Co Tyrone closed a road as a precaution.
But while local people were dealing with the aftermath of a slide which they warned could happen when they opposed the wind farm, they were stunned to be informed that plans were being developed for a second farm.
The second project, which the developers call Meenbog 2, was originally proposed in tandem with the existing Meenbog site 7km away, but it did not go to planning. According to the developer’s website, the two will be linked by underground cables.
No planning application has been submitted yet for Meenbog 2.
The developer’s community liaison officer confirmed the letter was sent before the bog slide but referred other queries to the company’s head office, where no representative was reachable last night.